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Found a 1977 map in a gas station that changed how I see the whole state
Stopped at a random pump outside Tok last week and the owner had an old state road map from 1977 taped to the wall. I knew the Dalton Highway was rough back then but the map showed it as a dotted line, no mention of it being a highway at all. Also, Fairbanks had like half the population markers it does now, and a town called Chatanika was listed as a main stop, which I never heard of until that moment. Does anyone else run into old maps or records that just completely shift your mental picture of a place you've driven forever?
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lee_bailey6514d ago
Chatanika was a real place, had a post office and everything until the early 60s when the gold ran out and the highway got rerouted. I keep a stack of old USGS quads for exactly this reason. You can pull them free from the survey's topo site and overlay them on current maps, and the difference around Fairbanks alone will mess with your head. Same deal with old census records, the population numbers from 1970 versus now tell a whole story the road signs never will. Next time you're in Tok, ask the owner if he'll let you photograph that map, because those gas station wall maps tend to vanish when the owner retires.
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